ABSTRACT
This chapter draws from an Australian Research Council Discovery project entitled “Games of Being Mobile.” The project was the first longitudinal study into mobile games in Australia. It sought to understand mobile games as part of broader cultural and media practices in the home. Over three-years we ethnographically engaged with ten households in six Australian capital cities, 60 households in total. The study sought to put games in context within the broader everyday rhythms and intimacies of the household. This “context” proved to be a heavily nuanced topic—due in part to the roles that class, financial capacity and age play in how we navigate mobile technology. By closely examining the influence class has on the household, this chapter interrogates the multiple device literacies, daily habits and communicative scenarios of use across participant households from differing socioeconomic standings. The aim of this chapter is to explore how the relationship between financial capabilities and class standings influence the types and forms of mobile media practices within Australian households.
